In the essence of the Dakar, its most precious characteristic is that it is unpredictable. You can never take anything for granted. That is what Henk Lategan, who until now had placidly reigned in the car category, experienced in his flesh. Yesterday it seemed that he had dealt a blow to his rivals for the Tuareg. 24 hours later, the Toyota driver has lost the lead to Yazeed Al Rajhi and Nasser Al-Attiyah, who to date had not shown his most explosive version, sealed his first stage victory with the Dacia. The Qatari, five-time Dakar champion, resigns himself to giving up the title.
After the victory of the stage between Al Duwadimi and Riyadh, Lategan assumed that he was starting today at a strategic disadvantage. It was up to him to open the trail and the nightmare turned into an odyssey. The South African punctured in the opening stages of the 357-kilometre timed stage between Riyadh and Haradh. Additionally, he had navigation problems because he thought he had skipped a waypoint.
A disastrous start to the stage that culminated in yet another puncture. The Toyota team suffered a loss of 16m02s with the winner of the day, Al-Attiyah; and lost almost 13 minutes to Al Rajhi, which made him stop being the reference in the car category. Now he is the one behind the Saudi (at 7m09s).
For his part, Nasser Al-Attiyah won his first crown, his 49th in his participation in this rally. The Qatari is one win away from the record held by Ari Vatanen and Stéphane Peterhansel, with 50 partial victories. The Dacia driver reigned the stage from start to finish.
He greatly reduced the distance with Henk Lategan, but what made his victory bittersweet was that he barely lost three minutes to the Saudi Al Rajhi. The gap between the two is 25 minutes and three stages remain – two of them quite short – but the Dakar is now entering the dunes of the Empty Quarter and, in that terrain, with the Qatari you never know. What he is close to in the general classification is the podium, since he is 31 seconds behind Mattias Ekström.
As for the Spanish, the best was Cristina Gutiérrez (Dacia), who finished the stage in eighth place. His times, like those of Nani Roma – who had many misfortunes today – no longer count towards the general classification.
Motorcycles
Benavides repeats stage victory and Tosha Schareina minimizes damage
The Argentine Luciano Benavides won for the second consecutive day in motorcycles. He did it thanks to the five minutes he got in bonuses. The Frenchman Adrien Van Beveren repeated in second position, 1m54s behind; while third place went to leader Daniel Sanders (at 3m04s). Some navigation problems in the final stretch of the stage deprived him of the partial victory.
Despite this, the Australian can be reasonably satisfied, given that his contract with the Spaniard Tosha Schareina was extended again to almost 15 minutes. The Valencian had a hard fall at kilometer 20 when he hit a bump with the rear wheel that caused him to be thrown off the bike. Schareina, who has had pain in her collarbone since stage 5, was able to continue and had to push hard to avoid losing too much time. With the fall he had lost about five minutes. Finally, he gave up 3m42s to Daniel Sanders. It could have been worse.
The one who continues to shine is the young Edgar Canet. The 19-year-old from La Garriga was eighth again in this Tuesday’s stage and is still among the best. The KTM rider managed to run third at various times, but in the last kilometers he lost some steam for a “roadbook “It looked like a puzzle.” Canet remains within the ‘top 10’ in the general classification with a solid eighth place and firmly leads the Rally2 subcategory: his closest rival, Tobias Ebster, is 52 minutes behind the Catalan in the general classification.
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